Friday, February 24, 2017

A Faith-Filled Follow-up

 

Dear Prayer Warriors,

Here’s the scoop, two weeks ago Anna was checked out by many therapists in the Jeffco school district all at once. Since then they sent us three pages of ability evaluations. In response Lindsey edited their findings, elaborated about Anna’s strengths and weaknesses, provided history/diagnosis, prioritized Anna’s disabilities, made goals, read a dry book on Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI), and had coffee with a mother who had already gone through the process. I helped by taking care of the kids, reading what she wrote and adding a light-hearted joke here and there.

It was quite an ordeal just to make it to the IEP meeting. What made things a bit more tense is the number of horror stories about bad IEP meetings we’ve heard on our parent forum: School districts not accommodating, Disabilities being classified too generally so the goals are vague, parents crying, comments that put a child “in a box”, the list goes on. That is why we knew we needed to ask for prayer. Now that we are on the other side of that harry beast I can see how God escorted us, chilled us out, and led us through it in 2 and a half hours.

The school district was incredibly prepared. I didn’t feel like it was a chess match it was more like Rummikub when you borrow one of the displayed tiles from a neighbor so you can complete your straight. They had great goals for Anna, coming alongside us complimentarily. We selected vision as the disability for the school to focus on. The vision coordinator there was so impressed with Anna that she asked to have Anna assigned to her.

Which brings me to another grace received this week; in preparation of the IEP meeting we had Anna’s annual CVI assessment. It’s a 1-10 scale (10 being normal vision) and Anna scored a 6-7. Last year she was a 4 and the year before that she was a 1. This girl is beginning to see! Now we got her school focusing on it too. There’s no telling what ability the Lord has in store! We have praised and trusted Him in blindness so I know we can keep on praising and trusting God in sight no matter. Alleluia.


Please Pray:
-For Anna as she has to learn to say good bye to therapists that only work with the early intervention system (Ages 0-3). We thank God for one in particular that connected with Anna, drew out potential, and cared so much.

-For Anna’s new schedule and routine, she will be going to a school 30 minutes away during nap time with much social interaction (soon after her third birthday).

-For God to be honored at Anna’s 3rd birthday party as we celebrate her life. May we would find creative ways of testifying the Lord’s goodness and faithfulness to us in this past year.

-For doors to open on Anna’s new year, for a resolution of her reflux. For another intensive therapy trip and for the Doman “Patterning” classes Lindsey and I would like to take.

I remain so thankful for you prayer warriors, I know prayer to be more precious than any financial contribution and more lasting than “good vibes”.

Nic, Lindsey, Anna, and Simon

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Fabulous news on the positive outcome of the IEP process. God is good, and it sounds like the Jeffco therapists have their act together!!

Teri said...

So awesome to hear of the improvement to Anna's vision! God is so good and amazing! I know He will carry you through all the "hoops" you must jump through.